I've finished 4 full weeks of training now since joining Lifestyle Fitness. Oh, I had been training at home on my Smith Machine, and pedaling to the beach and running a little since September, after visiting my son and brother in Pennsylvania. My son Joey works out regularly at the gym and my brother still pounds away on the iron in his basement. He's still one strong MF'r even at his age.
But I got more serious about my training after visiting my daughter in Dallas during Thanksgiving. She runs or goes to the gym almost every day. It seems like everyone in the family was making real efforts to stay fit, while I was sitting on my fat ass watching TV. The last four weeks have changed that.
Three gym visits in each of the first two weeks, which was during Bonefish training and the first week of working there, then 4 gym visits in each of the next two weeks. Not a bad start. Besides doing strength training on all of those visits, I also hit the treadmill on each visit except the last. I went to the beach instead, and ran the park loop after that last strength workout.
I've done as I said I would do, working legs, back, biceps and abs on one day, then chest, shoulders, triceps and abs the other day. Unofficially, on my home scale, I have gone from 188 pounds, down to 179 pounds in the 4 weeks, and I can see and I definitely feel the difference working out is making. I feel more toned and leaner, and I think I even have a little more energy. I'll get on the Lifestyle machine on Sunday to get my "official" statistics as far as weight, BMI, and Body Fat and report on the changes over the first month.
The problem I face is that the running is not coming along as quickly as the strength training is. But I think the reason I feel that way is because of the way I used to run, and the memory I have of how it felt. As I slog along now, I dream of how easy it used to be to just coast along, breathing easy, enjoying my surroundings, and mostly just setting my mind free as I cruised along, mile after mile, and I long for that feeling again.
I did do better on my run at the park today than I had been doing before. My first loop, divided into tenths of a mile, was W R W R W R R, the second loop went W R W R W R R and then I just kept running R R R R W R R. So I finished with .7 miles walking and 1.4 miles running with a full .6 mile run worked into the middle. It's the most distance I've run straight through in long time, and as a bonus, my legs no longer felt like blocks of cement. They were strong, and ready to run, but it's the cardiovascular fitness that is lagging behind, I still get winded too easily, and gasp for breath. I realize that it took a long time to get this far out of condition and it's going to take a lot longer than one month to get back into condition.
The plan for the next 4 weeks is much the same, strength training four times a week, with cardio either on the treadmill, or outside on those same days. I'd like to throw in more outside running also, but I've got to be careful not to overtrain, it's easy to give yourself upper respiratory infections if you overdo it too much.
I'm going to change up the strength training just so the muscles don't fall into a rut from the same routine. I'll still work the same muscle groups together, but I'm going to switch up most of the exercises and attack the muscles from different angles on different machines and using different free weight exercises. That will also keep me from getting stale and keep my interest up.
It's going to be a great New Year and I look forward to hitting my goal of weighing in at 164# by the end of February, and running a 10k race with my kids sometime this coming summer or fall.
LIFE IS GOOD!!!
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